CTC, the national cycling charity, is urging its members and supporters to write to the Mayor of London, demanding that he takes urgent action to stop lorries killing cyclists and pedestrians in the capital.

Lorries pose a serious risk to cyclists in urban areas

CTC is angered that the Mayor’s response to the recent spate of deaths in London has been to point the finger at the victims of these collisions. Instead, CTC believes the Mayor should be tackling the sources, rather than the symptoms, of road danger, in accordance with basic principles of safety management. These include major roads and junctions, and lorries.

CTC wants the mayor to implement the following actions:

(a) Re-design and re-build major roads and junctions to high standards of cycle-friendliness, rather than sacrificing pedestrians' and cyclists' safety in order to maximise motor traffic flows;

(b) Insist that lorries used in London should meet high cycle-friendly and pedestrian-friendly design standards;

(c) Keep lorries off the busiest roads at the busiest times.

As the Mayor Boris Johnson launches a ‘zero-tolerance’ policing campaign, CTC hopes this policing operation will genuinely tackle the real sources of danger rather than simply being a PR exercise to satisfy Londoners that he is ‘doing something’.

CTC fully acknowledges the value of cycle awareness campaigns and training, for lorry drivers and cyclists alike, to minimise further risks caused by irresponsible behaviour or simple human error. For instance, there is undoubted value in raising cyclists’ awareness of the dangers of riding up the left hand side of lorries.

However the Mayor's one-off policing clampdown, targeted at drivers and cyclists alike, appears to be aimed more at deflecting attention from the real issue, namely his own and ministers' responsibilities for minimising road danger at source.

The charity’s Chief Executive, Gordon Seabright, also wrote to the Transport Minister, Robert Goodwill, encouraging him to call in the leaders of the haulage and construction industry every time a cyclist is killed in a collision with an HGV.